


Falling

by Jaelijn



Series: Profound Bond Ficlets [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mentions of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Losing people to the Croatoan virus wasn't exactly unexpected at the end of the world - and yet, Dean still didn't expect Cas's reconnaissance team to come back with the former angel nowhere in sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> As this is endverse, it is not a happy fic. In fact, it is probably the darkest I have written for SPN yet. There are mentions of drugs and suicide, more swearing than usual, and both Dean and Cas are very much damaged by the apocalypse. It remains true, however, that no archive warnings apply. Ummm, enjoy?

The virus hit hard and fast, faster than anyone had expected, even a natural pessimist as Bobby Singer. They had stopped some of the distribution early one, more out of sheer luck than any preconceived plan, but of course it hadn’t been enough. Nothing ever seemed to be enough anymore. Lucifer had found other ways. It didn’t really matter how – it was happening, and Dean had already had to put two poor bastards of his reconnaissance team out of their misery, not to speak of the civilian towns that succumbed one after the next, like dominoes falling. It hadn’t exactly been a surprise.

And still, Dean hadn’t expected Cas’s team to return with John at the wheel and Cas nowhere in sight.

“John! What happened?”

The young man, aged far beyond his years by the death of his son, grunted. “Damn infected got to us. Wouldn’t let us take the supplies.”

Dean’s eyes travelled over to the other car, where people were starting to unload bags and paper boxes. “You got them.”

“Aye, we got them. Just about.” John was scrubbing at a spot of dirt on the side mirror of the SUV.

“Where’s Cas?”

John froze, and suddenly couldn’t look Dean in the eye. Dean grabbed him by the coat and pushed him back against the car. “Where _is_ he?“

John didn’t even try to fight him off, knowing better. “Croat bit him when he tried to protect Liz. Should have shot him on the spot, but Liz insisted on bringing him back.” He jerked his head towards the rear of the car, the large trunk with the tinted windows.

Dean shoved John away with disgust. He was right, of course. Despite all, the guy was one of the most level-headed Dean had come across, and if they had more people, he’d given him his own detail already. John knew how to act in a crisis, what happened to people who got infected, and he had the guts to do what it took. Still, he was talking about _Cas_ , and no one talked about Cas like that – except Dean.

Dean pulled out his gun and wrenched open the trunk (the door stuck, and no one’d had time to fix it). They’d trussed Cas up securely, binding his wrists and ankles with whatever bit of rope the team had carried, leaving little leeway for movement – not that Cas was moving. There was a bump on his head where they’d knocked him out, the area turning purple already. That, however, was the least of Dean’s worries. The problem was the gaping bite wound in Cas’s forearm, still bleeding sluggishly into Cas’s shirt where his bound hands rested against his stomach. The blood had trickled down to his hand, coating it red. The skin around the wound was inflamed and the edges jagged, looking like any bite, but of course it wasn’t. Cas was breathing shallowly, still unconscious. Good.

Dean stuck the gun back behind his belt and hefted the former angel into a fireman carry, careful not to get any of the blood on his own skin. He’d burn the clothes later. He brought Cas into the hut they used for interrogations, and exchanged the rope for padded cuffs, strapping him down on the table. They made a point of not bringing Croats into the camp, but Dean was meticulous about cleaning up, anyway. The hut was clean, probably more so than Cas’s cabin.

The Croatoan virus was setting in ever faster these days, sometime the first symptoms showed even after a few minutes. Dean hadn’t stuck around many transformations, but he knew what to watch for, often before it was too late. But in this case, he had to be certain. He needed to see the feral insanity in Cas’s eyes before he could put a bullet through his brain.

He wasted alcohol on cleaning out the wound, some thread on stitching it up, all while wearing gloves, which he then burned along with the clothes he’d worn doing it. He didn’t stick around to watch the ashes being blown away by the wind.

Cas woke up after Dean had changed and stepped back into the hut, bolting the door. He had sobered up, unconscious just long enough that without a new fix his pupils had returned to normal size, and he appeared lucid, his gaze flickering around the hut and settling on Dean.

“What – we’re back at the camp.” Cas tugged at the cuffs, not achieving much. Dean was meticulous and well-practiced. “No! He should have shot me! Why didn’t he shoot me?!” There was an edge of panic in Cas’s voice, human emotion for once not dulled by his usual haze of drugs.

“Guess Liz wanted me to do the honors,” Dean responded, dryly.

Cas’s eyes snapped back to his. It was weird seeing him so alert. Dean had gotten use to the jaded druggy stare. “I’m infected.”

Dean shrugged. There was pretty much no chance he wasn’t, and it was no use lying to Cas. He knew as well as Dean.

“Then shoot me right now before I go out of my mind and kill someone!” Cas pulled at the cuffs again. He didn’t even look scared of dying. Just angry.

“There’re no symptoms yet.”

“I got _bitten_!”

Dean met and held Cas’s gaze.

Cas snapped his mouth shut, swallowing down whatever protest he was about to make, and knocked his head back hard against the table’s surface. “Fuck.”

Dean folded his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “Pretty much.” He had no intention of leaving before this was over, one way or the other.

“Didn’t know you cared, fearless leader,” Cas drawled with a veneer of casualty.

“Piss off, Cas.”

“That’s the plan”, Cas shot back, “if you fucking let me.” He really wasn’t one to mince words.

“You haven’t turned yet.”

Cas’s arm twitched but he kept still. “That didn’t stop you from shooting Daniel and Katherine.”

“I could tell.”

Cas laughed. “And what, now you can’t?!”

Dean didn’t answer.

“Fantastic. I’m too sober for this. Fuck.”

For a while they were silent, listening to their own breathing. Cas’s was erratic, halting and pained altering with calm and even, as if he was trying and failing to keep it that way. Dean felt eerily calm, setting a smooth breathing pattern for Cas to fall into.

“I don’t suppose there’s any spare pain meds?” Cas said, eventually. “No, forget it. Already wasted alcohol and thread for the clean-up. Who doesn’t appreciate a pretty looking corpse.”

“Cas.”

Cas met his gaze, eyes huge and pleading, at odds with his bitterly sarcastic and shallow tone.

“Maybe you’re immune. You used to be an angel, that’s got to count for something.”

Cas looked down and away. “The Croatoan virus isn’t demonic in origin. It was designed by Lucifer after he Fell. He had little interest in sparing the angels that came after him. If anything, the virus will act faster.”

“Okay.”

“It isn’t. How long?”

Dean consulted his watch, wiping away the grime. “Just over an hour.”

Cas bit his lip. “Okay.”

“It isn’t.”

Cas gave a mirthless laugh. “So we’re just gonna wait?”

“Nothing else to do.”

“Give me the gun. Untie me and give me the gun. I’ll just need the one hand.”

“No way.”

“Just give me the gun and leave.” Cas was looking right at him, unblinking.

“I said, no way, Cas.”

“Dammit, Dean!” Cas yanked at the cuffs, then fell back with a pained gasp. He completely missed that Dean had started at hearing his name. It’d been a while.

Once Dean had pulled himself together enough to look back at Cas he wished he hadn’t. Cas wasn’t sobbing, but there were silent tears streaming down his cheeks unhindered, spilling out of his eyes in a surprising torrent, his breath stuttering.

Dean stepped closer. “Cas?”

“I’m scared. Dean, I’m so scared. I already Fell, I don’t want to become this! I don’t want to _die_ like this!”

“So what, you’d rather put a bullet through your brain?”

“Yes! I’m useless, I’m infected, so yes!”

“When you start showing symptoms.”

“No! Dean, I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t save Sam and I’m all but useless, but I’m not going to let you do this! I will spare you this, and if that is my last act, then at least it has a point! Dean – I would have followed you to the end. I would have died for you, if that’s what it’d take, given the chance, but I won’t let my death be this. I cannot let you do this to yourself; I won’t let it be you that kills me! I won’t _break_ you!”

Dean stared at Cas, and Cas stared back, more like the angel he’d been than in a very long time. Dean wanted to punch him for even mentioning Sam, but suddenly this wasn’t the falsely cheerful stoned hippie. This was Cas – Castiel – and he just… He turned on his heels and slammed the door on his way out. He still heard Cas cursing.

Dean waited over two hours before coming back. Two hours drinking, shouting at Chuck and getting shouted at by Bobby, but he couldn’t bring himself to return and face Cas. The thought of a goodbye terrified him beyond reason, even more than the thought of what he might find now that the incubation period had well and truly passed.

To his surprise, Cas, or the Croat, whatever he was now, had fallen into a fitful sleep. He was twitching in the restraints, eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids. He’d rubbed his ankles raw even on the padded cuffs, trying to break out and evidently having failed.

Dean pulled his gun. He should do it now, spare himself the crazed look in Cas’s eyes, spare Cas, whatever was left of him, having to face this conscious. Still, Dean had never heard of a Croat sleeping – and so he waited, hoping against hope and fully expecting it to be crushed.

Cas’s skin was ashen, erratic spots of red blotting his grey face, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and some blood oozing from the wound. It wasn’t typical symptoms. They weren’t usually as overt.

Dean placed the gun on a table.

Cas jerked awake at the noise, his eyes as clear as they’d ever been, none of the atavistic, feral insanity of the Croats.

Dean breathed a sigh. “Jeez…”

Cas craned his neck, trying to see Dean behind him. “Dean?” He sounded like the angel again. Lost and perpetually confused, but that probably was because his tongue was heavy with sleep and he seemed to be running a low fever – nasty, but ultimately harmless.

“Yeah,” Dean grunted, and started undoing cuffs – ankles first, just in case.

“What are you doing?” Cas asked, sharply.

“You’re clean, Cas. Damned if I know how, but you’re clean.” His hands were shaking.

“I can’t be.”

“It’s been well over three hours.”

Cas lay still, watching him work. When Dean started fiddling with the final cuff binding his right wrist he asked, voice very calm: “Why are you doing this, Dean? I am sure I deserve it, but I don’t understand why you would do this to yourself.”

“Do what?”

“Spread false hope.”

Dean slammed his fist down on the table. “Fuck this, Cas! Fuck you! You’re not infected!”

Cas had started away, stumbling off the table at the opposite side. Being strapped down for over three hours hadn’t helped his circulation, and he was clutching the edge of the table in an effort to stay upright. “Have you seen this?” He lifted his arm. “She bit me, Dean! We quite clearly exchanged bodily fluids. Maybe it takes longer with spittle, maybe you were mistaken about the time – if you leave me now, I am going to take a gun and kill myself – or maybe use the angel blade because wouldn’t that you be poetic.”

“Stop it, Cas! You’re clean! I’m not making this up to fuck with you!”

“I _can’t_ be!”

“How do you feel?!”

“I feel like shit but I’m coming down so I can’t tell. Dean, I can’t tell!”

“Then will you listen to me? There hasn’t been a single symptom! Damned if I know why, but even if the reaction were delayed, there should have been something, _anything_ , by now!”

Cas was suddenly hunching over, clinging to the table for dear life. “Dean, I… I can’t…”

Dean caught him when he fainted.

 

He took Cas back to his cabin, and locked himself in with the former angel. Just in case, but that remained unspoken between them. Cas didn’t attempt to throw him out, but he also made no further move for the gun. He didn’t turn.

He had gone well and truly into withdrawal, and Dean wasn’t particularly inclined to let him swallow some new shit. He had no illusions that Cas’s drug habit wasn’t going to start up again, but for now, the chemicals were going to get out of his system, even if it mean that Dean had to play nursemaid. Not that he’d ever admit to anything that happened in the hut that night. Cleaning away vomit was one thing, as was keeping the former angel hydrated on something other than booze, but neither of them would speak of conversations and confessions, born out of misery and adrenaline, shock and relief.

They’d gotten away, and that night Dean thought that maybe he could kill the devil after all.


End file.
